Bush Threat to Fire Medicare Actuary if He Told Congress Cost of Prescription Drugs

These Bush guys just can't stop lying.

(I know, it wasn't about a blow job or under oath, but doesn't it get sort of tiring?)

Jorge and Bama, let's hear why this was ok. ********************
Daschle calls for revote on Medicare drug bill
The Senate minority leader says a new vote is needed on the Medicare drug benefit bill after learning the administration's top cost analyst may have been ordered to provide skewed information to Congress.
BY TONY PUGH
tpugh@krwashington.com

WASHINGTON - Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle said Friday that allegations of unfavorable cost estimates about the Medicare prescription drug bill being withheld from lawmakers justifies reopening the vote on the drug benefit.

The nation's top Medicare analyst confirmed Friday that his former boss, Thomas Scully, ordered him to withhold his estimates because they exceeded what Congress seemed willing to accept by more than $100 billion.

Richard Foster, the chief actuary at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said Friday night that he received a handwritten note from Scully, then the centers' administrator, in early June ordering him to ignore information requests from members of Congress who were drafting the drug bill
Knight Ridder, The Herald's parent company, reported the episode in an exclusive story published Friday, but Foster's comments were his first on the matter.

At the time of the estimate, the House was sharply divided on the proposed new Medicare drug benefit, which the administration strongly backed. Ultimately, the House passed the measure, 216-215, on June 27. In November, House members endorsed a House-Senate compromise version by a 220-215 vote. Approving the version were 13 Republican fiscal conservatives who had said they would vote against it if it cost more than $400 billion for its first 10 years.

On Friday, leaders in the House and Senate called for investigations into the alleged muzzling. Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., wrote President Bush demanding to know what cost estimates he used in pushing the new drug benefit.

`DIRECT ORDER'

Scully's note, according to Foster, ``was a direct order not to respond to certain requests and instead to provide the responses to him and [to] warn about the consequences of insubordination.''

The note was Scully's first threat in writing, Foster said, and came after at least three less formal threats. They ''came in different forms,'' he said. 'Sometimes he would make a comment that `I think I need another chief actuary,' or 'If you want to work for the Ways and Means Committee [which was drafting the bill] I can arrange it.' It was that sort of thing.''

Efforts to reach Scully at his office and home on Friday were unsuccessful. In a recent interview, he denied closing off Foster's lines of communication with Congress. On only one occasion, Scully said, did he block Foster's contact with lawmakers, in this case Democrats, saying their motives were purely political.

Foster said Scully insisted upon a pattern of withholding of information.

''Estimates that were supportive of the legislation were generally released and estimates that could be used to criticize the legislation were generally not released,'' Foster said.

Foster said he believed higher-ranking members of the administration than Scully knew of the higher cost estimates that his office had computed.

''Did the president know? Did [Health and Human Services] Secretary Tommy Thompson know? I don't know,'' Foster said.

The White House press office didn't respond to requests for comment.

HIGHER COST

Knight Ridder reported Friday that Foster's Office of the Actuary suggested that the drug benefit would cost at least $100 billion more than the $395 billion estimated by the Congressional Budget Office, whose job it is to project costs of legislation. One projection prepared in early June by Foster's office and obtained by Knight Ridder concluded that a Senate version of the bill might cost as much as $551 billion.

When Bush signed the bill in December, the drug benefit bore a $395 billion price tag. In January, the president's budget director, Joshua Bolten, upped the estimate by $139 billion.

Sen. Bill Frist of Tennessee, the majority leader and one of the few Republicans to address the controversy Friday, noted that Foster's estimates were based on different and more costly assumptions than those of the Congressional Budget Office.

Frist's spokesman, Bob Stevenson, added: ``If an individual's job was threatened and if they were trying to shield information from Congress, that could be an issue of concern.''

In a grim-faced floor speech Friday, Daschle, a South Dakota Democrat, called for reopening the vote on the drug benefit. He also called for an investigation into the firing threat and assertions that the administration had withheld its cost estimates from Congress.

''Whether this is criminal or not is a matter we will certainly want to clarify,'' Daschle said. ``But if not criminal, it was certainly unethical. And I think we need to know the facts.''


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Gottal luv em. Sully, Bush;'s Mediare chief, the guy who threatened to fire the actuary if he told Congress the truth has already quit government and got his payoff with a job at Big Pharma.

What's more he was given an "ethics waiver " to look for the Big Pharma job while shilling for Bush and Big Pharma.

True Bush use of a stint in government.

Let's hear it, Bama and TJ, for these guys.

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Rimrocker, sorry I missed your thread.

Hope someone merges the two.